AP The conventional wisdom is that Silicon Valley is the only great place to found a tech startup. It's got great engineers, a huge network of financiers and advisers, and pleasant weather all year.

But it's also ridiculously expensive. To buy a house and live comfortably in San Francisco, a person needs a salary of more than $180,000 per year — more than double the salary needed to do the same in LA, according to a recent survey.

Where else should you settle?

To get an idea, Mattermark took a look through its funding data, focusing on the number of investment rounds closed and the total deal value. Then it looked to see which cities showed the biggest increase in deal action between 2014 and 2015. It also measured the average annual-growth rate in deal rounds and value between 2012 and 2015.

So how about the San Francisco Bay Area? It was No. 1 in number of deals by a huge margin, and also No. 1 in deal value. But in terms of deal growth, it placed only No. 15 last year, and No. 16 on average since 2012.

Workers place a Super Bowl advertisement on the side of a building in downtown San Francisco.
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